


Remembrance

by Firecadet



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Remembrance Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 17:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12752946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firecadet/pseuds/Firecadet
Summary: In the year 2200, Commander Shepard attends the annual service to remember the fallen from the Reaper War, with their bondmate Liara, and their two children.





	Remembrance

1058hrs, 22nd June 2200, London, Earth, Systems Alliance Space

As the day had approached, I'd begun having nightmares.

Fourteen years ago, I ran through the streets of a London almost unrecognizable, even to a native. Nearly every landmark or monument had been destroyed. Millions of the population had been massacred in their homes, and on the streets.

Trafalgar Square, which hadn't just been levelled, but turned into a deep crater by the reapers, had been the site of the only access point for the citadel. The Gate.

Of all the forces engaged on Earth that day, only Admiral Anderson and I had reached it.

Where the gate had stood, we'd erected a pillar of stone, ten feet high, formed from an interlinking puzzle of hard-wearing igneous rocks from each home world that had contributed assets to the engagement. Quarian basalt. Asari marble. Turian granite. Gold mined on Kar’Shan, the only metal present, capped the monument, representing that they had been the first to suffer. Hanar coral, inset into the plinth, carved from terran sandstone. Only the volus lacked a representative stone, having none that would be stable at anything approaching room temperature.

Around the monument, a large garden had been planted, forming terraces down the depression the Reapers had left in central London. One quarter of each terrace was devoted to flowering plants from Palaven and Rannoch, planted together, complementing each other with lush ferns and glorious flowers. In other sections, the flowering plants of Thessia, Kar'Shan and Tuchunka stood among samples from thousands of planets, each remembering their dead.

Glancing around, I checked that both of my daughters were standing behind me, wearing sensible dresses and shoes. They were too young to remember the Reapers.

I envy them that.

Next to me, I felt my bondmate inveigle her hand into mine, and gently squeeze, sending a small surge of reassurance and calm.

At the first stroke of Big Ben, restored after near destruction, chiming the exact moment at which the crucible fired, a single, archaic, breech-loading field gun was fired, sending a cloud of powder smoke, and the birds of a dozen planets, into the air.

At that moment, every noise stopped.

There were perhaps ten thousand people in the plaza of remembrance. Three thousand humans. The same number of turians. Fifteen hundred quarians. Fifteen hundred batarians. Five hundred asari. One fifty Krogan. Fifty elcor. Fifty rachni, including a queen. Forty-nine volus. Twelve hanar. Thirty-eight drell. One prothean. 

Every single one of them, regardless of species, was silent.

We remained that way for five minutes. A minute for Kar'shan. A minute for earth. A minute for Palaven. A minute for Thessia. A minute for all of the colony worlds, regardless of species. Then a second cannon fired, and the air was filled with turian hunt-cries.

Once the hunt-cries had died away, a lone human, standing next to the obelisk of unity, began playing one of the oldest pieces of symbolic music still in use.

The Last Post rang out, a feature of human military funerals for more than a fifth of an Asari lifespan, conjuring images of men who'd died nearly three hundred years ago, in the mud of France and Belgium, walking measuredly into machine gun fire, then breaking into a run as they got closer to their objective, the enemy lines, perhaps seventy metres away, falling with the unmistakable sudden bonelessness of the violently killed.

As the brass notes from the bugle echoed around the tiers of the gardens, there was nothing but silence.

Then it was my turn. Speaking the words of a poet writing about that war, fought between humans, in the mud of France and Belgium, with weapons of minimal sophistication. We had killed an entire generation of young men in that war, one way or another. We had scarred those who came home from it just as violently. I pictured Kaiden Alenko, Richard Jenkins, and all of those who had been killed alongside me when the first Normandy went down in flames over Alchera. A spasm of the mental torture of the weeks and months fighting the Reapers washed over me, causing me to age suddenly, as I began speaking.

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left shall grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the Sun, and in the morning, we will remember them."

The final sentence was repeated back, by ten thousand voices.

As I finished the words, I waited, for a moment to pass, as did everyone.

"When we came here fourteen years ago, we did not believe that we could win. We believed that we could avoid losing. Every species gathered here lost many thousands in the fight. To the Reapers, it must have seemed like our sole candle had briefly flared, driving back the dark for a few moments. Then, against all odds, somehow, we managed to find a way, not just to not lose, but to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. That victory came at a cost that dwarfs the Krogan rebellions, or the Rachni war. Of the force that landed on earth, in those few hours of combat, eighty percent died or were seriously injured. Ninety percent of those who engaged in the skies above Earth were killed, wounded, or left adrift. But somehow, we defeated the Reapers. Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko died on Virmire to stop the Reaper Sovereign. Dr Mordin Solus died on Tuchunka, ending the genophage. Dame Miranda Lawson nearly died on Horizon, fighting to expose Cerberus involvement in Sanctuary. Lieutenant James Vega nearly died between here and Downing Street. Countless millions, equally brave, equally heroic, died, or were severely injured, alongside them. They died, so that others might have the chance to live. They are the heroes of Earth, Palaven, Tuchunka and Thessia. And we will remember them. On this day, fourteen years ago, nearly every serviceman in council space volunteered their today, in the hope that we would have a tomorrow. I will always remember them."

I stepped back from the microphone, allowing my two daughters to step forward with a wreath, symbolizing one of the few flowers to have emerged in the weeks after the reaper defeat. The Poppy. They had grown up around the trenches on the western front, all those years ago. They had grown around the corpses of Reapers and their victims alike. Holding it between them, my two Asari daughters laid their wreath on the tomb of the unknown human soldier, one of seven tombs, each containing a different species, each containing the unidentified, and unidentifiable, body of an unknown combatant from that final day. The turian councillor was next. Gravely, he laid a wreath representing turian field flowers, a plant with similar habits to the poppy. The Asari councillor, dressed in what most Romans would have considered a toga, laid her own wreath, representing Thessian moonflowers, a symbol of mourning on Thessia from around the time we were building the very first Pyramid in Egypt. The Krogan lacked a flower with the same traditional connotations, and simply laid a wreath representing all of the flowers that survived on Tuchunka. With Garrus at her side, Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Normandy Nar Rannoch, laid a wreath based on quarian funerary tradition, almost forgotten for centuries. The head of state of the Vol protectorate laid a wreath representing a small flower from Irune that only grew where the ground had been disturbed. A wreath of sea-grass, woven with flowers saved from the Drell home world, was placed on the tomb of an unknown drell.  Finally, the eclor representative laid his wreath, before stepping back.

As one, every soldier and civilian packed into the garden saluted the stone of unity, as three SR1 frigates tore through the sky above the garden, formed into a finger four formation on the Normandy. As they reached the exact point of the Stone, the Normandy pulled up sharply, climbing through the cloud layer in a matter of seconds, in a missing man salute, as the three SR1 frigates continued towards the Thames estuary. Behind them, a full squadron of red fighters, displaying a wide black band around the middle of their fuselages, flew in, at a lower altitude. As they passed over a set point, each fighter peeled off, climbing into the sky, except for the lead aircraft. As that aircraft reached the Stone, the rest of the aircraft dropped back into formation around it, and turned on holographic markers on the bottom of their fuselage. Each bore the heraldry of a different species.

Once the roar of the engines had faded, a band started a march, and a column of veterans began marching through the plaza, between the rows of those formed up in uniform. Leading them, as they had done every year since the ceremony was held, was the Normandy association, those who had served aboard the original SR1 Normandy, and her successor, the SR2, along with their families, particularly in the case of those crewmembers who had died when the SR1 was destroyed.

As I have done every year, I fell in with them, along with Liara, Edee and Kaida. Of those who had survived both conflicts, only Joker was absent. He was somewhere over the Thames, at the helm of the SR2.  Three wreaths were laid by the Normandy association: One for the Citadel, 2183, a second, the largest, for Amada, and a third for Earth, 2186. In careful step, the Normandy association marched around the corner from the plaza, before starbursting, heading back to their lives.

I just remembered those who would never get the chance, as I buckled my children into the family aircar.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while back, and then improved it over an extended period.


End file.
